Beckman Insitute Annual Report 2004-2005

Research topics for the Beckman Post-doctoral Fellows in 2004 and 2005 were as varied as the backgrounds of the Fellows themselves. They investigated the social organization of a beehive and the properties of nanoscale self-healing polymer composites. They are developing software applications to recognize expressions in the human face or that will encode information at the quantum level. They came from Italy and Puerto Rico, from MIT and the University of Illinois.

The Fellows’ different backgrounds, research topics, and personalities all found a home in the Institute–due in large part many of the Fellows say–to the freedom and independence afforded by a Beckman Post-doctoral Fellows appointment.

Tyler Bruns earned his Ph.D. in mechanical and industrial engineering from the University of Illinois, and then did post-doctoral work in Denmark. Bruns works primarily with Professor Narayana Aluru of the Computational Electronics group, but he said the Beckman Fellows program has allowed him enough autonomy to lay the groundwork for future research and work in academia. “When you’re a post-doc you don’t get to see what it takes to run your own research program, and the project is dictated by someone else,” Bruns said. “Whereas as a Beckman Fellow, you have to set your own agenda, figure out what you want to do and get from A to B by yourself.”

Stan Colcombe received both his master’s degree and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Illinois before earning a Beckman Fellows appointment in 2002. He’s seen his research interests multiply in three years. “My Beckman Fellows (appointment) has allowed me a great deal of freedom and resources to branch out into new and novel research areas,” Colcombe said.

With that freedom comes a stipulation the work should incorporate the Beckman philosophy of an interdisciplinary research approach. Colcombe works with members of the Human Perception and Performance, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Biological Sensors groups. As a collaborator with researchers in these groups, as well as with imaging engineers, Colcombe focuses on aging, brain function and structure. “For example, collaborations with Cognitive Neuroscience and Kinesiology faculty have allowed us to investigate the relationship between factors such as aerobic fitness and brain health,” Colcombe said. “Working with the bioengineering faculty on ways to improve the methods of image processing has helped to set the groundwork for more efficient and accurate algorithms for the analysis of human brain data.”

Colcombe is currently a postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of Human-Computer Intelligent Interaction Co-chair Art Kramer, assessing the neuroanatomical substrates that underlie age-related changes in attention. His main area of research addresses structural and functional brain changes in older adults, using structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging and other methodological approaches. Colcombe’s collaborative work has shown that older adults with greater levels of cardiovascular fitness tend to show better neurocognitive function. Other Fellows have also had productive interdisciplinary collaborations.

Diego Diaz, a 2002 Beckman Fellow, joined the research group of Professor Paul Bohn, and has worked with members of the Advanced Chemical Systems, Nanoelectronics and Biophotonics, and Computational Electronics groups. He investigates phenomena that occur at nanoscale surfaces and interfaces. “The Beckman Fellows (appointment) has allowed me to interact with world-renowned experts in my areas of research, as well as given me access to state-of-the-art research instrumentation for carrying out my research,” Diaz said.

Christina Grozinger was named an assistant professor of entomology at North Carolina State in 2004 after spending three years as a Beckman Fellow investigating the role pheromones play in the behavior and physiology of animals. Grozinger concentrated on honeybee colonies as a way to understand the effects of pheromones, which are chemicals released by one member of a species to affect another member of the same species. Her research showed that pheromones might affect behavior by altering the properties of neurons in the brain. While a Fellow, Grozinger worked with Gene Robinson of the Neurotech group, as well as researchers from other disciplines. “It was great, being able to interact with so many groups of people,” she said. “All the resources for genomics are really set up at this campus. It makes it very easy to work.”

Diaz, who does research into porous semiconductors, electrochemistry, materials chemistry, and nanochemistry, agrees that the knowledge and resources provided by his Beckman Fellows program are something he could not find elsewhere. “The combination of human resources– knowledgeable faculty and facilities staff– and instrumentation is unique, and allows me to pursue the research directions that I am interested in,” Diaz said.

Bruns’ focus is on topology optimization, which incorporates the optimal design for a structure into the analysis process for designing that structure. His original research topic was to use this design technique for microelectromechanical devices. But, Bruns said, topological optimization is also useful as a first-step tool, whether the designer is working in microns or thousands of feet. Bruns said architects could include topology optimization in their software to generate, for example, a conceptual bridge design that already accounts for factors such as wind currents before planning exactly how the detailed structure will look.

“So the objective is to tell me how to build it to withstand those loads in the best possible way,” Bruns said. He said topology optimization uses finite element analysis (FEA) to break the design into individual parts that are still subject to governing equations. He said those governing equations may be impossible to solve analytically for the entire structure, “but break it up into small components, and impose governing equations on those finite elements and then piece them together to make entire structure. Those can then be solved.”

Bruns said using topology optimization might not, for example, give an architect the most aesthetic design for a building, but it can say whether or not to put material in a certain position in the building to sustain loads.

“Someone has to come up with that, not thinking of it from an aesthetic point of view but from an engineering point of view,” he said. “You can use topology optimization to say ‘what is the stiffest structure I can build to support those loads? How can I put that in the design?’ It’s a tool for conceptual design. It’s in the beginning stages of the process.”

Tyler Bruns focuses on a design technique called topology optimization.

The Beckman Fellows program allowed Bruns enough independence to take his work to Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico for three months. There he sought to include topology optimization into their design tools and design a micro-thermal actuator. His research focus began with and still does include incorporating topological optimization into design tools to rapidly prototype the design of microelectromechanical devices. But that was just a starting point for his Fellows appointment, Bruns said. “That was a nice idea for an overall project but the actual idea of building the device itself is not the most interesting part because people can go off and do that once you tell them what the design is,” Bruns said. “But I’ve found along the way there’s lots of other, more interesting projects as far as topology optimization I need to figure out.” And, along with the other post-doctoral researchers at Beckman, his Fellows appointment will allow Bruns to do just that.